Andrew Harbin's Van Helsing
by AndrewHarbin
Summary: Set in 1887, this is my version of the horror that is Van Helsing involving Dracula, Frankenstein's Monster and the Werewolf obviously, but also a few of my own notions! !CHAPTER FOUR IS UP!
1. Default Chapter

CHAPTER ONE – DRACULA?  
  
The crude, monstrous machinery about the towering chamber begin their groaning movements and electric discharges with the pull of a large, rusty switch. A raging storm outside adds to the frightening display of the colossal machine with every flash of lightning and rumble of thunder.

"Igor!" Frankenstein calls down from a wooden platform above, "Prepare the brain so I may quickly implant it and get to the reanimation!"

"Yes, master!" Igor responds as loud as he can through the commotion of the machine and storm. Frankenstein makes his way down the steps from the platforms with Dracula behind him as he states, "I am so pleased to have you Prince Dracula on this glorious night. This night deserves an audience that truly appreciates the work of science!"

"Indeed," Dracula replies, "But I have a concern that reanimating a dead man will reanimate his soul as well doctor."

Frankenstein explains with a laugh, "Not to worry my lord! The reanimation of a dead man does not actually reanimate who he was in life. The furthest that will go is the reanimated man's new soul so to say may be founded on the base nature of the former soul and nothing further. Besides my lord," – Frankenstein eyes a very large, basalt tome with antediluvian glyphs etched on its cover in gold. – "had it not been for this book this new vision would have never been seen."

Frankenstein holds the heavy book within his hands and continues with madness in his eyes, "The Philosopher's Stone, the Holy Grail, the Tablet of Hermes Trigemestes, none of them measure up to the power of this! The Necronomicon, Book of the Dead! It is with the secrets of this book that I shall create a new triumph . . certainly greater than the old." Frankenstein looks over his shoulder with an insane look of frustrated loathing in his eyes at a poor, crazed and tormented soul chained to the floor by a collar being tortured by Igor who is thrusting a pole with a flame at the end at him with sadistic glee. Frankenstein finally scowls, "Igor!! Enough! We must begin!"

After setting down the book, Frankenstein marches over to a mechanical operating table where their lays a heinously grisly assembly of body parts pinned down to the table and wrapped up tight in a straight jacket. Right as Frankenstein approaches the table he trips over a large, metal bucket. Painfully sitting up after the fall, Frankenstein looks and to his horror he sees a mangled brain in a puddle of thick blood flowing from the bucket. Infuriated, Frankenstein rises to his feet and bellows, "DAMN YOU TO HELL, IGOR!!"

Igor cowers as Frankenstein continues, "Clean this NOW!!"

"Yes master!" Igor responds rushing to the mess. As Igor cleans up the blood and then eventually loses himself to ecstatically licking the blood off his fingers, Frankenstein paces about in frenzied anxiety muttering loudly, "What am I to do now?!? Oh by God, why did this have to HAPPEN TO ME?!? Alright, I must – I must analyze the problem and my resources! The ghoul perhaps? No! My blow to the back of the head damaged the brain! What am I to do??"

"Doctor!" Dracula calmly called. Frankenstein looks at him in utter frustration and watches as Dracula eyes Igor lapping the blood out of the palms of his hands. So then Frankenstein picks up a large, vicious-looking surgical tool, quietly yet quickly lurks over to Igor and stabs the tool into Igor's heart through his back.

Outside a mob of disheveled villagers carrying torches, pitchforks and all manners of tools and weapons are nearing Frankenstein's hulking, dark tower as the storm rages on around its top. Back in the laboratory, Frankenstein has finished the brain implant at the moment of the mob's approach. So then he pulls down a lever that begins to raise the operating table up through the rainy opening at the top of the tower as Dracula watches from on top of one of the platforms. It doesn't take long for a sudden bolt of lightning to strike the rods emanating from the back of the monstrosity's head causing a brilliant show of explosive sparks.

The mob is closing in on the tower bridge from afar just as the operating table returns before Frankenstein. He clutches on to the edge of the table and looks into the monstrosity's face with a blazing whirl of mad wonder in his eyes. The Monster's left arm begins twitching and Frankenstein eyes this filled with overwhelming surprise and ecstasy. He looks back at the Monster's face and gasps as he watches its eyes snap open. "It's alive!" Frankenstein mutters at first with unspeakable wonder, "It's alive! It's alive!! My God, IT'S ALIVE!! This is what it is to be GOD!!"

BOOM!! At that moment, Frankenstein was pulled out of his ecstasy by a trembling pounding sound different from the thunder outside. A second after being startled, Frankenstein hurries to a barred window and sees below a mob with a battering ram on the bridge slamming it into the doors. Frankenstein then swings around shouting with fear, "What could they . . . . "

He sees that Dracula is no longer standing on top of one of the platforms, but is crouching upside-down on the bottom of it calmly stating, "They want you doctor. And they shall have you."

"What are you talking about?" Frankenstein snaps as he begins placing many tools and tonics into a leather case, "I have committed no offense against them! I have done nothing but keep to my own business here! Now begging your pardon we must be going!"

"Doctor," Dracula remarks as he balances himself across the edge of a huge fireplace, "It is I who will be leaving with your work! You can stay."

"What??" Frankenstein exclaims looking up to see nothing on the top of the fireplace. At that second, Dracula slams his hands down on the leather case pinning it to the table as he scowls ferociously, "CALM YOUR MADNESS, DOCTOR!! This new work of yours will be mine to take with me and I will leave you to your death!"

A surge of fury fills Frankenstein's eyes as he suddenly whips out a sword from under the table and begins slashing at Dracula with it. With each slash however Dracula dodges it with dexterous speed. With a few slashes Frankenstein exclaims, "You shall not touch my work!!"

Behind them, the Monster begins struggling on the operation table and growling catching the ghoul's attention. Eventually, within a second, the Monster rips the straight jacket open and begins tearing the latches off his body terrifying the ghoul. As Frankenstein's fight with Dracula rages on, the Monster gets to his feet looking at the flashing, colossal machinery around him and then he spots the ghoul who begins crawling up against the wall whimpering miserably. The Monster gives a strained grin of sadistic glee so he approaches the ghoul, takes the long-poled torch Igor was using and pierces it into the ghoul's abdomen as it wails and chortles with terror and pain. Blood spurts on to the torn straight jacket about the Monster's body. The Monster dips his fingers into the blood and licks the blood off.

Frankenstein's fight with Dracula ends when Dracula grabs the blade of the sword between the palms of his hands. With a surge of madness, Frankenstein pushes the blade forward and the sword pierces into Dracula's abdomen. Not fazed at all by the pain, Dracula marches forward letting the blade pierce right through his body. Just an inch away from Frankenstein, Dracula backhands Frankenstein across the face powerfully sending him across the laboratory. Dracula then turns around and within a second spots the Monster holding the operating table above his head. Within the same second, the Monster thrusts the table into Dracula sending him into the flaming fireplace.

At that moment, the mob suddenly bursts into the laboratory and eventually overcomes the Monster after some of the villagers are killed by the Monster's fury. They carry him out tied to a long pole along with the unconscious Frankenstein. Right after they leave, the operating table suddenly bounces out of the fireplace and Dracula walks out of the flames almost burned beyond recognition. But then he regenerates his body as he watches the light from the mob's torches disappear down the stairwell.

Once outside and far from the tower, the mob races across the rain-soaked plain toward the village carrying Frankenstein and the Monster with them and after a while they feel and hear a peculiar crack of menacing thunder in the north. Villages away, at the tips of the Transylvanian mountains, there is a massive ghastly glow of phosphorescent light radiating from under what looks like the phantom castle they all know the Son of the White Worm dwells within. And from the top of the highest tower of the castle the silhouettes of three slender gargoyles led by a much more devilish bat- winged monster fly up and through the very bottom of the storm clouds and rapidly come closer and closer to the mob.

Just then, the Monster snaps apart the rope tied around him and breaks the pole in half with the freed force of his weight. He quickly gets to his feet, grabs one of the villagers by the shirt and thrusts him into the air where the villager is grabbed on accident by one of Dracula's brides as she was swooping in to grab the Monster. She flings the villager away dashing him against the side of a tall, thick tree and right at that second another strong villager shoots an arrow at her causing her to screech and flutter off for a second.

Suddenly, the mob becomes engaged in a battle with the bestial vampires as the Monster suddenly spots Frankenstein lying in the mud. He looks at him curiously as if he recognizes the doctor as Frankenstein stirs between consciousness and unconsciousness. After glancing back at the battle, the Monster picks Frankenstein up and staggers off into the woods. A moment later, a villager spots the Monster's silhouette disappearing into the forest so he calls for everyone's attention and then leads a fairly sized portion of the mob into the woods. Under the dark trees, the only thing that lends a good guess to the mob of where the Monster is going is a flash of lightning every once and a while. Eventually they reach the other side and see the Monster entering a windmill far off.

They hurry over to the windmill as the Monster climbs to the top of windmill and once there they decide to start building a fire around the windmill. They begin doing so and before long a raging inferno flares up along the outside of the structure just as the Monster steps out on to a balcony with the doctor in his arms. He looks down at the rioting mob as they begin chanting at the Monster, "DIE!! DIE!! DIE!!"

Seconds later, "DIIIEEEEEEEE!!"

The mob goes silent after hearing this scream come from the Monster's throat causing one of the female villagers to faint. Suddenly, the whole windmill collapses and the Monster disappears into the inferno below along with the doctor screaming in hellish agony.


	2. CHAPTER TWO VAN HELSING VS NEPHRENKA

CHAPTER TWO – VAN HELSING VS. NEPHREN-KA  
  
Van Helsing rides by a stone wall ripping off a wanted poster baring his name and image on a horse as he makes his way into the stormy Egyptian desert. Sitting behind him is an old Briton bobbing up and down. The old man shouts above the wind, "Can't we go a bit slower?? At this rate my back will become bent like a snake!"

"Do you want to save your daughter Herr Langwell?" Van Helsing shouts back.

"Quite right!" Langwell replies. And so Van Helsing and Langwell make their way across the sandblasted, dark desert as the storm above lights up the dunes before them. Before long, they begin nearing a vast Egyptian temple-tower with a narrow, towering pyramid in its midst looking as though it was being licked by the lightning of the storm. Eventually Langwell shouts, "Hamunaptra!!"

With that, Van Helsing drives the horse faster and within moments they enter a huge, arched gateway where Van Helsing begins to slow the horse down approaching the center pyramid. Inside, Van Helsing and Langwell begin to descend underground into the dank, menacing halls below. Here they both unsheathe their swords, light torches and make their way down one of the tunnels very slowly. Eventually Van Helsing asks, "You got the scroll?"

Langwell looks within his jacket and replies, "Yes."

"Okay," Van Helsing states, "you look for her down that way and I'll look for her down the other way."

Langwell stutters frightened, "Beh . . . . Van Helsing?? What about Nephren- Ka?"

"Just use the scroll!" Van Helsing replies.

After trying to swallow his fear, Langwell continues slowly down the hall. The darkness and chill of the terrible tunnel keeps some fear still stirring deep within his heart. At one point, he suddenly feels a ghastly gust of wind pass down the hall towards him and it causes him to spin about nearly putting out his torch. Taking a deep breath, he gathers himself back together and continues down the hall reciting, "Take heed that no man deceive you. For many shall come in my name saying 'I am Christ' and shall deceive many. But he that shall endure unto the end, the same shall be saved. And this gospel o . . . . "

The echo of an unearthly sound reverberates about the tunnel from the left and Langwell spins to his left with a halt thrusting his torch before him. The torch lightens up a large room with a sarcophagus in the middle. He slowly approaches it and then sees that it is lidless. Inside there is a nearly skeletal yet unpleasantly pulpous corpse with a few burial bandages still wrapped on its arms and torso and right away Langwell recognizes it as Nephren-Ka especially because of the royal yet self-styled garb it was dressed in.

"There's the damned Antichrist!" Langwell growls. He quickly pulls the scroll out of his jacket and begins reading. Only a few words into the recitation, Nephren-Ka sat up instantly and supernaturally sank the fingers of his right hand into the back of Langwell's neck. Langwell begins to slowly mummify alive as Nephren-Ka curses him in Egyptian. Van Helsing suddenly jumps into the room exclaiming, "Mein Gott!"

Van Helsing quickly whips out a huge, metallic cross and flings it at Nephren-Ka with all his strength. It pierces through the villain's chest and sends him flying right through the wall behind him along with Langwell half-mummified. Van Helsing runs through the large hole in the wall into the settling dust to see Nephren-Ka rise from the ground pulling out the cross very close to full regeneration, but appearing now as a corpse just beginning decomposition. A sickly yet boiling evil gleams in Nephren-Ka's eyes as Van Helsing pulls out two 'buzz stars' starting them up. Nephren-Ka then roars fiercely at him and then Van Helsing instantly begins slashing the buzz stars right at Nephren-Ka. The villain keeps dodging with unnatural speed and just as Van Helsing tries to swing in a kick towards his face Nephren-Ka turns into a cloud of ash that disappears into the ceiling.

Van Helsing comes to a halt and looks around on guard against Nephren-Ka. He sees that he is now in a giant sanctuary and then spots Langwell's daughter tied down to a stone table struggling to get free.

"Evelyn!" Van Helsing calls out. He runs up the stairs leading to her and uses one of the buzz stars to cut off the rope keeping her right arm down. Suddenly, Van Helsing is backhanded powerfully across the face and is sent sailing back into the midst of the ground below. He looks and watches as Nephren-Ka bellows out an incantation in Egyptian. Suddenly, skeletal arms wrapped in thick, dusty burial bandages punch up through the ground from underneath one after another and then ghastly mummies begin pulling themselves up out of the ground. Van Helsing jumps to his feet and right at that moment the mummies begin coming after him like savage beasts. Without any delay, Van Helsing pulls his sword back out and begins slashing it at the living dead with great speed and agility reducing them down to piles of twitching body parts.

But right as it seems Van Helsing has achieved the upper hand the legs of one mummy latch themselves on to Van Helsing's legs tripping him up. A mummy diagonally dismembered at the torso then grabs Van Helsing by the head with its left arm. Van Helsing is pinned down with his sword just out of reach. And so Nephren-Ka grabs Evelyn's flailing arm and begins to mount her as he forces a kiss on her. She responds to it with screaming.

But just when it began to look hopeless for Van Helsing, he spots a mummy's dismembered forearm dragging itself towards his sword. Once it grasps the sword's handle, Van Helsing grabs it by the stub and manages to slash the sword right through the neck of the mummy strangling him. The mummy's head spins right off causing the rest of it to fall back and then he manages to stab the sword right through the crotch of the mummy legs. Just as Nephren- Ka sits up mounted on top of Evelyn Van Helsing lifts the dismembered legs up into the air and sends them slamming right into Nephren-Ka. The villain falls back and lands on to the floor only to thrust himself back on to his feet. Van Helsing runs up the stairs, leaps right over Evelyn and begins slashing his sword at Nephren-Ka upon landing. After a few dodges, Nephren-Ka suddenly whips out a sword and wages a swordfight with Van Helsing.

As they fight, Van Helsing takes a few quick seconds to slash the ropes off Evelyn's legs and other arm and then shouts, "The scroll is in your father's jacket!!"

Evelyn takes off after her dead father as Nephren-Ka swears in his own tongue and then kicks Van Helsing in the stomach sending him to the bottom of the steps. When Evelyn drops to her knees next to her father and sees the terrible death he endured, she cries, "Agh! Father!"

Van Helsing blocks Nephren-Ka's attack as he shouts, "The scroll!!"

Evelyn then begins searching her father's jacket and during her search Nephren-Ka whacks Van Helsing's sword right out of his hands causing it to stick into the wall at the far side of the sanctuary. In the same second, Nephren-Ka deliberately stabs the sword through Van Helsing's shoulder, pulls it out causing him to stumble forward and then pierces his fingers into the back of Van Helsing's neck. Nephren-Ka growls something in Egyptian and then begins draining Van Helsing's life force. But suddenly, Evelyn found the scroll and immediately begins reading the entire Egyptian incantation. Nephren-Ka suddenly stops as if something grabbed his own soul.

Nephren-Ka begins trembling violently as both Van Helsing and Evelyn watch. Nephren-Ka then states something in his own language and a second after the last word an eldritch mist seems to deliberately travel back into Van Helsing from Nephren-Ka regenerating his life force. He then pulls himself away from Nephren-Ka letting the puncture wounds on the back of his neck heal and then the mist begins to twirl about Nephren-Ka increasing in mass. Then Nephren-Ka begins to implode back down into the form of a hideous mummy and finally he suddenly explodes into a dusty and bony mess. Van Helsing then slowly gets to his feet and then once up Evelyn translates, "Death is only the beginning."

Van Helsing and Evelyn look at each other for a while, but suddenly a mass of Egyptian warriors led by a superior with a very intelligent and powerful look about him enter the sanctuary through the hole and begin looking around. After the superior scans the room with his eyes and then rests them on Van Helsing with suspicion, he asks with a demanding voice, "Where is Langwell?"

"Abdul!" one of the warriors calls. Abdul struts over to the warrior and sees the half-mummified body of Langwell. He then glares at Van Helsing and scowls, "Infidel! Murderer! KILL HIM!!"

At that instant, Van Helsing takes for the actual doors of the sanctuary, but then he turns back, quickly yet passionately kisses Evelyn and then takes off again. He makes it out of the pyramid and races out of Hamunaptra. He never stops as he sets his destination for the Vatican of Rome.  
  
-- All it really took was one good review! I can tell I will enjoy FanFiction.net. Obviously by now you may have noticed that this chapter not only changes Van Helsing's intro-monster from Mr. Hyde to the Mummy (one I gave the Lovecraftian name Nephren-Ka), but that I also used material from the modern version of The Mummy. The reason for this – if you don't know – the fine fellow that directed and wrote Van Helsing, Stephen Sommers, also wrote and directed The Mummy. So the 'monster change' was an easy one to make. Once I complete Andrew Harbin's Van Helsing 1 and 2, I shall move on to my own Evil Dead stories: The Evil Dead – Dead By Dawn, The Evil Dead – Army of Darkness, The Evil Dead – Apocalypse Hell, The Evil Dead – Beyond the Abyss, The Blackwood Horror and Ash vs. Pinhead. --


	3. CHAPTER THREE UNDER THE VATICAN

CHAPTER THREE – UNDER THE VATICAN  
  
Once Van Helsing arrives at the Vatican, he makes his way into a confession booth where he sits down, crosses himself with an exasperated sigh and drearily states, "Forgive me father for I have sinned."

The priest slides open the latch instantly and quietly scowls, "If I had it my way that'd be the truth!"

"Father," Van Helsing explains frustrated, "There was nothing I could do about Langwell! I had to destroy Nephren-Ka!"

"Has it ever entered your mind," the priest responds, "Not to bring a well- noted elder along with you on a dangerous quest??"

"He insisted!" Van Helsing replied.

"All the same you do not do such a thing!" the priest snapped angrily.

Tired of the whole thing, Van Helsing gets up to leave, but the priest turns a stone dial causing a metal, barred door to drop down in front of Van Helsing blocking the way out. "You need to start learning some reverence and gratitude for the Church." The priest sternly remarks as he then pulls a lever causing the backs of the booths to open up revealing a connecting passage that leads to a stairwell. The priest continues with frustration in his voice as they descend down a coiling staircase leading to a huge dungeon full of all manners of Catholic priests and things, "First you leave that madman Erik de Chagny hanging by his neck from the opera chandelier for all of those of London who thought of him as a poor madman to see, then you let Dr. Jekyll fall from the top of Notre Dame before the eyes of the people there and ah you leave all signs of evidence that it was you who slaughtered the warlock Jabez Faustus, Duke of Brezmarn! You are the only man of this secret order that nearly all of Europe knows about because of your messiness!"

The priest glares at Van Helsing with all of the angry frustration in his eyes. Van Helsing just stands there trying to hide the fact that he truly doesn't care for the empty, hypocritical ways of the Church especially for the disorder that surfaces as 'dealings with the Devil' among the order at times. The priest just shakes his head with some kind of disappointment in Van Helsing he's gotten used to over time and concludes, "Reverence Abraham! It is a virtue you could merit from. Now if you would follow me."

Van Helsing follows the priest into a smaller dungeon dressed up in fine Church decorations and laid with red carpet. Off-center of the room is a desk with two chairs in front of it and between the chairs is something that looks like the medieval times' attempt at creating a projector. The priest asks Van Helsing to have a seat in one of the chairs and he begins as he walks to the desk to sit down, "Unfortunately for my sanity, we do have another assignment for you. Father Jethro."

Another priest that must have been waiting in a corner of the room behind Van Helsing walks up to the projector, pulls a lever causing it to spark a little and a half-hazy projection of a map appears on a white sheet on the wall across from Van Helsing. The priest continues, "This is a map of a region in Eastern Europe deep within Romania. The name of the region is Transylvania and almost all of it is under the satanic oppression of a man who was said to have been killed in battle in 1476."

The projection changes to a colorless painting of a man in the garb of a Hungarian king with long coiling hair, Romani eyes, an aquiline nose and a thick moustache. The priest continues, "His name is Prince Vladimir Dracula the Impaler. From 1456 to 1461 and for a short time in 1475 he became the King of Wallachia, which included Transylvania. He was a diabolical and ruthless ruler who was the last of the corrupt Order of the White Worm, a familial clan of sorcerer-knights who dealt with the Devil under his guise as the White Worm and as a result each one arose as a vampire after death. It was believed that each one was hunted down and slain including the Impaler, the rumors that he still haunts the land have been affirmed by the Belmonts."

The projection changes once again to a colorless painting of a powerful, stern-faced man clad in both the armor and traveling garb of the time. The priest continues, "The Belmonts are another familial line descended from Joshua Belmont, an English knight of the Church who had sworn to the destruction of the rogue knights of the Order of the White Worm. The only remaining descendants of this time are Simon and Sonia Belmont. They have resumed the quest to destroy Dracula after learning of his existence while slaying other monstrosities."

Here Father Jethro turns off the projector and the priest leans on to the desk concluding, "The Bishops have chosen you to go to Transylvania to assist the remaining Belmonts in the slaying of Dracula. Now I have made your failures unknown to them for long enough Van Helsing. If you fail in carrying this assignment out with a bit of stealth or grace, I will make them known and you will suffer the consequences. Now go see Carl."

Back in the main dungeon, Friar Carl leads Van Helsing to his station talking, "I think you'll be very happy with me Van Helsing. I have created some excellent, new weapons to use against vampires."

"Can you assure me of that Carl?" Van Helsing asks with a smirk.

"Of course!" Carl replies.

"Well," Van Helsing continues, "I hope they're at least better than the one you gave me to slay the vampire Cruxt with. Thanks to that one he's probably dining with this Dracula fellow by now."

"The garlic-swing was perfect!" Carl complained, "You just weren't using it right! You see have to use it just like sling-sh . . . . "

"Carl!" Van Helsing interrupted, "Garlic doesn't work on vampires! It's been proved that the idea is a myth!"

Carl replies surprised, "Really??"

Rolling his eyes, Van Helsing states exasperated, "Carl!"

"Alright! Alright." Carl continues, "Firstly, I have invented this." Carl pulls out what looks a long, triangular, narrow blade attached on the top of a crude 'half-gauntlet' with leather straps for forearm attachment. As Carl straps it on he explains, "I call this the gauntlet of decapitation. As you see, like all other gauntlets, you strap it on to your arm and once you get the chance you jerk your arm forward hard," – Here Carl does just that causing the blade to slide down within a second and stop at the edge of the gauntlet with a 'ching'. – "and swing it at the bloodsucker's throat!"

Carl then takes it off, places it in a bag Van Helsing is holding open and then picks up what looks like a Heavy Croosbow asking, "Now, what do you think this looks like?"

After eyeing Carl as if he's a silly fool, Van Helsing glances at the crossbow and replies, "It looks like a modified crossbow of the heavy sort."

Carl adds enthusiastically, "This is a crossbow that will actually shoot five arrows per second as long as you keep your finger pressed against the trigger! Now if there is anything I can assure you of Van Helsing it's that this will soon be used by the entire order against vampires! Then we'll see who the genius in this laboratory is!"

"Yes we most certainly will Carl." Van Helsing remarks with mock sympathy and then adds after spotting a strange, metallic sphere sitting on the table nearby, "What's this contraption?"

Carl looks and then explains as he holds it in his hands, "Ah! Well, I'm not quite sure what it's for really."

"Oh," Van Helsing states, "So you don't know what it does?"

"Oh I know what it does," Carl explains, "But I don't know what it's for."

"Ah." Van Helsing responds confused, "Well then what's it . . . . "

"Van Helsing." The priest calls approaching from behind.

Van Helsing turns and answers, "Yes?"

The priest explains, "I'm afraid that your assignment has grown more dangerous as of late. Apparently Dracula is engaged in a dire battle with another evil that rivals his power and on top of that something called the 'monster' is killing the peasants of Transylvania. It may be a wise decision if you bring Carl with you."

Van Helsing begins averse to the idea, "Whoa, Father Abbas, I don't think . . . . "

"Oh finally!" Carl exclaims swinging over to his station to begin packing things, "I get to be apart of an assignment! I have waited so long for such an opportunity!"

Stuttering Van Helsing continues, "Father Abbas, Carl is simply a friar of the order! There is no way I could bare the burden of bringing along a half- wit that would get killed the first second I start swinging a sword!"

"Reverence Van Helsing!" Father Abbas quietly exclaims, "Doing as I tell you is the beginning of it!"

Father Abbas walks away as Van Helsing stands there fretting about this new misfortune. Carl then walks by at a quick rate stating, "Don't worry Van Helsing, I will not fail you! I can cut a vampire's head as well as I can fashion a sword."

Following up from behind, Van Helsing remarks frustrated, "You may know about the staking and decapitation of a vampire Carl, but I don't think you know anything about how they think and act."

"I know enough!" Carl exclaims.

"Really?" Van Helsing scoffs, "How?"

Carl replies, "Reading books all the time! So to Hell with you!"

Van Helsing remarks, "I don't think a man of the Church should swear Carl."

"I'm a friar," Carl explains, "Not a monk. I can swear all I want! Damn."

Carl makes his way up the stairs with Van Helsing behind him shaking his head with an amused grin on his face.


	4. CHAPTER FOUR THE BATTLE UNDER THE MOON

-- I forgot to add an author's note to the bottom of chapter three about some things so I'll add it here. I'm willing to bet that some of you grinned or rolled your eyes when I had Father Abbas mention Van Helsing's failures with Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde and Jabez Faustus. But the one character that I mentioned that might be a little cloudy was Erik de Chagny. The name Erik belonged to Lon Chaney's Phantom of the Opera and the 'de Chagny' part was the last name to one of the other characters in that classic. And besides the fact that I chose the historical Vlad Dracula the Impaler as the background of my Dracula, you can't tell me you never heard of the name Belmont! That one comes straight from the Castlevania video game series. --  
  
CHAPTER FOUR – THE BATTLE UNDER THE MOON  
  
Sonia Belmont and several strong Gypsies wait amongst the dark trees surrounding an open area with one towering tree in its midst where there sits a few other Gypsies in its branches as well resting a long, thick rope on their laps. The sky above is riddled with patches of bulky clouds that become darker in the east for in the west a red sun is setting behind the black mountains casting a dark crimson hue into the bulky clouds just above the sun. As the night ever so slowly moves in the chill winds of the twilight begin to pick up and whistle through the tops of the trees. Many of the Gypsies become unnerved about the hours waning into the time when the evil spirits rise from the shadows and descend upon them with all the fury of Hell, but Sonia stands in this backdrop of unspoken fear like a powerful, iron statue.

"The moon will come out soon." Sonia remarks to herself in a low voice, "Simon must hurry."

Deep in the woods to the east, Simon and three other Gypsies quietly walk across an area filled with roots, branches and leaves. Like Sonia, Simon is the only one impenetrable from the terror of the black, twilight shadows stretching from the top to the bottom of the trees surrounding him while the others breathe heavily with fear.

"Where is this blasted hut?" Simon grunts to himself impatiently. And a second after he grunted that last word he spotted the pitch-black silhouette of a large hut amid an inky patch of shadowy darkness with windows glowing sinisterly in an ember red color.

"There it is!" he whispered as loudly as he dared. After taking a look at it again, Simon whispered, "Alright, you come with me. You two search for what looks like a back door and sneak your way in. Alright, now, prepare your swords gentlemen."

After unsheathing their swords, they broke up into twos and made their way to the hut. Inside the hut, a large fire leaps and flares from a large hole in the floor from where it burns. Its light casts a red shade across the floor and bottom of the walls while the only glow of flickering flames that is cast on the ceiling above is directly above the fire. The rest of the hut is nearly pitch-black and standing before the flames is a very strongly built figure clad in a great, dark robe with a hood that completely obscures the face. The figure stands before the flames casting a few manners of ground herbs into the fire while chanting and every once and a while, with a wave of his arms, the flames spout up to a larger size and then subside.

Eventually, the hooded figure walks over to a crude shelf on the wall to his right, picks up a small pot with a lid using both hands and opens the lid. Just then, Simon and the Gypsy that paired up with him burst into the hut whipping their swords forward. The figure raises his head to look and they both see two wildly sinister eyes glint eerily at them.

"You now have a choice," Simon states with a sternly intimidating tone in his voice, "You can have us escort you out of these lands to put an end to your vengeance for these people or you can suffer the wrath of Hell after I bury this sword into your heart!"

The figure places the pot back on the shelf and then pulls the hood off his head revealing a sternly powerful and predatory face baring an evil grin, long, dark, wily hair and a scar along his right eye. The man gives Simon a sinister look and states, "You think you have the power to make me choose from only two fates you put forth that both end in the same way??"

"You are a minion of Satan!" Simon scowls coldly, "For that alone you deserve to die!"

The man chuckles as he walks back over before the flames, "Arrogance and ignorance!"

Simon suddenly lunges forward with a ferocious scream, but with a wave of the man's arm Simon's sword leaves his hands causing him to drop to the floor and it pierces into the Gypsy behind him. The Gypsy drops to his knees trembling in pain and shock and just before he falls dead Simon makes the sign of the cross towards him.

"You have no idea what you are facing crusader!" the man scowls as Simon turns back to face him, "I do not need your Christ! I do not need your salvation! I don't need your God!!" – The man waves his arm again causing Simon to fall backwards beside the dead Gypsy. – "For . . I am . . the Black Shaman!!"

The Black Shaman raises his hands in mad glory causing the flames to suddenly explode. The flames suddenly spread slowly turning the hut into a raging inferno and when Simon looks he notices that the Black Shaman has disappeared. Pulling his sword out of the dead Gypsy, Simon then leaps over the fires and takes off towards the back of the hut. He notices that a backdoor leading outside is open and when he stops within the door he sees the other two Gypsies killed by what would seem like a log that rammed itself fiercely into their chests. But then he takes off again into the darkening woods.

Back at the clearing, only one ray of the sun is left glowing from over the mountains in the west and soon it disappears leaving the area in pitch darkness for a while with the moaning winds in the trees. And then, a cloud moves out of the way of a full moon and while the Gypsies look up at it trembling in the height of their fear Sonia just stares up at it knowing that anything could happen at any minute. Suddenly, a bloodcurdling howl pierces out of the east causing one of the Gypsies to shriek with a jolt of horror and fall out of the tree in the middle of the clearing. A second after Sonia hears the howl, she marches out of the woods and stands in front of the tree at the middle of the clearing as the Gypsy has a terrible time climbing back up. Sonia stares into the eastern woods where eventually the trees begin shaking because of something enormous coming right at the clearing and soon it shows itself: A huge, lean werewolf in torn, Romani pants and wearing a dark, pre-ripped shirt with vicious eagle- beaks and deadly talons hanging off of it. Sonia knew who it was right away when she was able to spot right before being leaped at the scar on the werewolf's right eye.

And when the werewolf leaps right at her, she flips backwards just as two barred walls rise out of the leaves and branches covering the ground surrounding the werewolf. A barred top hinged to the top of one of the walls then instantly swings shut and locks caging in the fierce horror within. The werewolf begins however to start ramming into the walls and gnawing at the bars as it growls and barks as if it were a wolf straight from the pit. But the Gypsies begin to hoist the cage up into the air with all the strength they can muster as Sonia hollers at them to keep going. But at one point, a Gypsy opens his eyes to see the werewolf look right into his eyes and down into his trembling soul. The Gypsy screams in horrified madness letting go of the rope. The cage then falls causing the other Gypsies to be hurled into the air.

Just as the cage lands on the ground with a deafening crash, Simon comes flying out of the eastern woods calling for Sonia. Sonia then runs towards Simon just before the werewolf CAN slash its claws at her through a hole in the cage from behind. Simon then leaps on to the cage and starts striking at all the holes the werewolf tries to squeeze out of. Soon enough, the werewolf gets its chance and begins squirming out of one of the holes, but during its effort Simon pierces his sword into its shoulder causing it to howl so loudly that it instantly drives all the Gypsies away. But then the howl turns into an enraged roar and the werewolf whacks Simon away baring its talons. Simon flies off the cage screaming in horrible pain as Sonia screams, "SIMON!!"

Just as a supernatural steam begins sizzling out of the werewolf's shoulder the werewolf instantly pulls it out throwing it far away yelping and then leaps away from the cage and into the woods still yelping with pain. During that time, Sonia drops to Simon's side and gags when she sees that the right side of his body has almost no flesh at all. Simon begins trembling as he makes an attempt to speak. He wheezes, "Sonia. The sword. Where's the sword."

Sonia looks around trembling probably just as bad as Simon and then sees steam rising off of a blood-covered sword. She runs over to it nearly tripping, grasps it by the hilt and runs back to Simon's side saying, "I've got it. I've got it."

"You have to kill me." Simon wheezed out stiffening Sonia's heart with those very words. She begins shaking her head and exclaiming with a shaky voice, "No! No! We could find a way to stop it! No!!"

"There's no time for that!!" Simon grunts strenuously as horrible pain sudden pulses through his body. Recovering a little he adds, "Just always keep that sword. Remember its legacy. Remember what its for. Now you must kill me!"

As another pulse of excruciating pain convulses through his body, Sonia raises the sword right above Simon's heart, but then she begins to sob, "I can't do it! Not my bother!! I love you, Simon! I love you! Dear God, I can't do it!"

"Sonia please!!" Simon wheezes painfully as another greater pulse fills his entire body. Before Sonia knows it Simon's body begins bulging all over as he screams at the top of his lungs. He begins to bury his fingers into his head and rip them through the flesh along his face revealing in the scars matted fur. At that horrid sight Sonia suddenly pierces the sword right through Simon's heart screaming and then a small yet explosive gust of black steam emanates straight from Simon's body.

After having her eyes closed for a while, Sonia looks and sees Simon's ghastly corpse right in the middle of the transformation into a werewolf. That sight being the most terrible insult to Sonia, she immediately begins bawling beside Simon completely unable to stop for several dark minutes.  
  
-- I have decided to add another story to the list of stories I plan to submit to FanFiction.net. It's a parody crossover involving me, the Matrix, Back to the Future and Terminator called Odd Xross. --


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